Let Them Leave You Up in the Air
by tyrsibs
Summary: Sam shows Jack the stars in the suddenly quiet night. Coda to episode 13x23, Let the Good Times Roll, written for LJ's SPN SpringFling Challenge, for saintsammy.


Jack left the two-room clinic through a side door, and the night air slapped him with a cold breeze that hit his chest and cheeks. It stung the skin on his stomach where the cut pulled at him even though it was now clean and bandaged, but he let the door swing shut behind him anyway. He couldn't listen to the man who was not his father mumbling to himself, saying the same name over and over again—"Teddy, Teddy—" Sam said that the man was disoriented and in pain. Jack just knew that the man laying on the examining table wasn't Lucifer, or at least, wasn't him anymore. He also wasn't supposed to be here.

They weren't supposed to be here, either. Jack walked on stiff legs across the dark street to a patch of grass, one hand over his bandage like he still had to hold his blood in. He sat on a chilly stone bench at the edge of the lawn, facing away from the clinic door. He should be inside, he knew. He wanted to help Sam, somehow. But Sam just sat in his plastic chair against the wall and listened to the man, the one they were now supposed to call "Nick." He sat and stared at his clasped hands, and Jack didn't know what to say or do.

Except to wait for Sam to move, to stand up and tell Jack that they were going after Michael. Or that they were going home to the bunker. That they would leave the man in the doctor's care, get back in the car Sam had stolen to get them here, and drive away. Or to ask him to call Castiel, or Mary. Or anybody. But Sam just sat and watched Nick breathe and mutter, until Jack couldn't sit beside him anymore.

He leaned back on the bench, folded his hands into his lap, and gazed up into the night sky, where a scattering of stars shimmered like silent beacons pointing the way to better worlds. He wondered if Michael had taken Dean up to one of those stars.

"Hey." Sam stood beside the bench, an uncertain smile on his face. Jack slid over to make some room. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay. I am looking at the stars." His hand went to his bandage again as Sam sat down. "When Lucifer found me in the woods, he showed them to me. We went to a clearing, where we could see so many of them. There were a lot more in the sky where we were-"

Sam let out a single laugh. "That's these street lights, light pollution makes it harder to see the stars. The amount is always the same, though."

Jack nodded. "He said we would go and visit them. He said—" he frowned, "that his Dad's work looked so much better from up there."

"Yeah, well, Lucifer liked the view from on top of the world. He never had much time for the small details, things he saw as imperfections—" Sam flashed a smile at him that crumbled away quickly.

"Like humans."

"Like humans. Right."

Sam's cell phone buzzed and he glanced down at it. "Doc Valerie says she's almost done. She's giving Lu—I mean, she's giving him a sedative for the pain." The words came out in a rush. "And then we can be on the road."

"Sam? Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. I mean—of course—"

"Why didn't you let me kill him?"

Jack remembered how Sam's shoulders had jumped when the still body behind them had gasped with a new breath. He remembered how, without a thought, he'd snatched the twisted blade from the floor and gone down on his knees at Nick's side, the tip of the blade pressing at the man's throat. The man had stared up into his eyes and there was nothing behind them but confusion. He didn't move, and he didn't protest the knife point digging into his skin.

Jack had raised the blade, just a little, in shaking hands. He told himself he was ready to make the killing blow, even as he realized how much harder this would be than any of the angels he'd disintegrated in the other world.

And then Sam was beside him, one hand on his shoulder, the other wrapping around Jack's fingers, stopping him with a steadying force and a sad gaze.

"I don't know. I think—" Sam looked up, finally. "I think that I didn't want you to do something that you'd regret. And you know—we saw Dean kill Lucifer. The wings were there, all around us. He was dead. Whoever was in the body—it wasn't him. So-it just didn't seem like the right thing to do."

"Not the right thing. I see." Jack looked back at the stars. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was a tough call for me, too." Sam stood up and tucked the phone into his pocket. "Ready to go home?"

"I am."

The man—Nick, he knew he had to start thinking of him as "Nick"—slept in the backseat as they drove. The trip took them through the rest of the night and from farmland up into low, gentle hills that turned into a mountain pass. Sam drove in a silence that Jack could not find the will to break. It was peaceful, and they were going home.

He found himself nodding off, but his head jerked up when a he heard a soft, "Huh—" from the driver's seat. Jack pulled himself upright and looked at Sam, his question dying in his mouth when he saw that Sam's hand was raised between them, his index finger pointing up as if he was about to say something important. He offered no explanation, though, instead pulling the car off onto a side road past a brown and white sign that read, "Miller's Landing Campground."

They rolled down the road, which turned to dirt, bouncing through ruts, until they were stopped by a gate, a single metal rail that stretched from one side to the other. Sam parked, turning the key to stop the engine and switching off the headlights, before he sighed and turned to Jack. His eyes glimmered in the darkened car cab. "C'mon. I'd like to show you something." He got out. Jack pushed his door open without hesitation and followed. He caught up as Sam was ducking under the rail.

They walked down the road, through trees and shrubs that swept a gentle dew onto their sleeves. The ground was damp, too, and the moisture crept into Jack's shoes, but he walked on. The road finally widened out onto a grassy slope. Jack could make out the bulky shapes of tables and the scent of old campfires. Insects buzzed about their heads, and somewhere ahead he heard the burbling of a stream.

Beside him, Sam took a deep breath, and Jack could hear the smile in his voice as he said, "This is one of our spots. We used to stop here whenever we could, do a little fishing, maybe, have a beer and watch."

"Watch what?"

"Look up, Jack." And he did. The stars, more even than Lucifer had shown him, winked above their heads, and he felt the quiet of this place, even through the cold breeze, the damp between his toes, and the bugs that buzzed away just out of sight.

"I can't give you the stars, or the world. They aren't mine to give. But here, in the thick of everything—here is where we belong. This is what I can do. I can show you how you—how we-fit into the world."

Jack breathed deep, as Sam just had, and they gazed at the stars. He smiled.

They stood, side by side, as a tinge of pink crept into the sky, and the closer edge of the stream bank revealed itself to them.

"Sam?"

"Hmmm?"

"What do we do now? "

Sam took in another deep breath, and nodded, more to himself than to Jack. "We go home. We find Dean—and then we bring him home, too."


End file.
